


aquatint

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Oxford, Post Series 7, city of aquatint, no comics canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:30:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1433566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time enough, and time enough for sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	aquatint

It takes her some time to think of going to visit. Kennedy is in Africa with Xander, hunting for Slayers; Buffy is in Italy, ostensibly hunting for Slayers but actually looking lovingly at shoes in shop windows (and who, Willow thinks, can blame or begrudge her now) and Dawn is reading and researching every spare minute she gets, as though the promise of a new life has lit a scholar’s fire in her. And Tara is in the dry warm earth, under the flowers and the sun, long ago and far away. Willow arrives in London on a wet, cold day in early August, and looks at her rain-blurred reflection in shop windows, and wonders what she’s doing here. Giles is in Oxford and sends emails, and once she’s renting a place, dim and damp near Mornington Crescent Tube, postcards: _it’s beautiful here you’ll like it_ , and _when you come I’ll take you for cream tea_. Not, _we survived, we go on living_ , but that’s there, too, she thinks, in the firm confident lines of his pen.

She doesn’t blow him off, exactly, only takes longer in replying to his emails than she should, and though there’s plenty of money from what’s left of the Watchers’ Council, doesn’t walk down to the little station and ask about tickets. And then she wakes up with a start and a bitten-off cry from a dream about Sunnydale disappearing into the depths and realises the little green plot in the sunshine, the flowers, and the stone all fell into hell with it. She’s up and dressed with the dawn and on the first train of the day westwards, watching bleary-eyed through the window as it snakes across the green and pleasant land. 

“Willow,” Giles says, at the station when she clambers off in a daze, “you came” – and she thinks for a minute he’ll be stiff and formal, but she’s not fifteen any more and he’s not a stranger in a strange land. He hugs her and swings her around and Willow thinks she feels something inside her start to uncurl, like leaves in spring, and begin to dry out.

Oxford is more beautiful than she could ever have imagined. The honey stone gleams in the sunshine and the river water glitters like stars. Giles lives in a tall house with a pink door and Willow exclaims about the sweet English perfection of it, the honeysuckle on the gate and sweetpeas below the windows. They go for the promised cream tea in a little café looking out on the High Street, curving away grand and beautiful into the distance, and she picks up the cup the waitress gives her and starts to cry.

Giles doesn’t move for a moment, and then puts his hand on hers, warm and comforting, like the steam from the cup. He doesn’t look at all surprised. Willow thinks that it’s kind of inevitable, that she’s been walking around for months now like she’s a giant glass of water full to the brim and now she’s been tipped too far. It’s not what she would have guessed as her tipping point, she thinks, looking around at the peaceful, cheerful café and the bright light shining, and holds out her hand for the napkin Giles gives her. When she can talk again she points through the window at University College across the street, among the oldest and finest of the Oxford colleges. “I got in there, you know,” she says. “When I was seventeen.”

“I know,” Giles says, gently. “You should be proud.”

At the time, Willow had picked it only because it was where Giles had taken his First in Ancient History, a long time ago in another country. “I was. But I didn’t go. I could have.”

Giles nods, and sips his own tea. 

“I couldn’t have gone,” Willow adds, on reflection. “Buffy and the others, Sunnydale – I couldn’t have gone. And I thought, I built my life anyway. Somewhere else. But – did you realise, did you, that Tara’s grave fell into the Hellmouth?”

Giles nods again. “I did. I’m so sorry, Willow.”

She’s reminded, suddenly, of how careful he was of her loss, even after everything that happened, after. “And Jenny Calendar’s,” she adds, realising it as she says it. “I’m sorry too.”

Giles nods yet again and doesn’t say anything. He’s giving her space and time, she thinks, like he always has. 

“Everything I gave that up for” – she peers through the glass once more at the sandstone façade of the college, glowing in the afternoon sun – “is gone.”

“No.” Giles leans back in his chair. “Because of you, Buffy is alive. Because Buffy is alive, we all are. And because of you and Buffy, there will be no more. No more girls who must needs give up everything that they are to fight a battle for souls older and dirtier than theirs.”

Willow smiles at that, a damp and rainy little smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“And as for the other thing” – Giles glances at his watch – “the postgraduate admissions office is on Little Clarendon Street. We can go there now, if you like.” 

“No,” Willow says, the clench of fear as inevitable, in its way, as the tears. Freedom, she thinks dispassionately, is frightening. “No. Not yet.”

“Not yet,” Giles repeats, expressionless.

“Next time,” Willow says, with more confidence. “Next time.”

Giles nods, puts a hand on hers again and takes it away. After a minute he picks up a table knife and begins to spread cream and jam on a scone for her, carefully and meticulously, as though there’s all the time in the world. There isn’t, Willow's thinking as she takes a bite, perfect and sweet and rich, but there’s enough, and enough time for the sun.


End file.
